Paging the Interns...

So, yesterday was my first day interning for the lovely Nancy Schwartzman, a feminist filmmaker (thelinemovie.org). I met Nancy at the Men & Women As Allies Conference in April and figured I could use my background as an art school grad and communications undergrad to help her out, and she ended up offering me a full-on internship right after I'd started to introduce myself. 

I had no more than learned how to spell "D Train" by the time I had pranced from NJTransit to PATH to Subway, after successfully finding my way and successfully brushing off the creepy men who stand on the border of NYU. Ironically enough, my first day interning for a filmmaker creating a documentary on sexual assault began with "I don't mean to scare you, but you're real attractive." I got to her place without so much as a hitch, an apartment in Brooklyn filled with books of thought and literature from the greats. She had me set my stuff down and began the day talking to me about the We The Women Sticker Campaign, which got press in the NYT (and you can read about it on her blog), and then we hopped straight into business: we watched the movie and spent the rest of the afternoon just talking about consent, feminism, and how to make the project consumable for collegiate students and how to manage the task of continuing a discussion about consent, boundaries, and sexuality that doesn't just end with a documentary viewing and a meet-and-greet.

What was most remarkable was Nancy's ability to truly make me feel like a leader and an important member of the team currently handling the marketing and the campaign construction. I've had a lot of internships before, from my senior year and this past spring, when I was with the Feminist Majority Foundation, but I found the experience of talking to Nancy one-on-one and designing entire campaign ideas with her empowering. It was great to be able to find an outlet as creative as a film for all of the new energy I've found for the topic of rape culture, sexual assault, and violence against women, and working on and planning future tasks with Nancy was something I truly valued as a part of my -hopefully- long time work on ending that culture, those assaults, and the violence.

Needless to say, it was a beautiful afternoon well spent, and an adventure I appreciated as well. There's nothing like a long train ride to allow you to catch up on your Vanity Fair.

THE LINE trailer from Nancy Schwartzman on Vimeo.